


safe

by novoaa1



Series: blackhill in phoenix, arizona [2]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Teenagers, Angst and Feels, Established Relationship, F/F, Fluffy Ending, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Maria Hill Feels, Maria Hill needs a hug, Maria Hill-centric, POV Maria Hill, Sharing Clothes, all the hugs, natasha is an awesome girlfriend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2021-01-27 12:26:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21392134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novoaa1/pseuds/novoaa1
Summary: “I miss you,” Maria whispers into her phone’s speaker whilst curled into a ball upon the cool stone window ledge, her voice a hair’s breadth below a whisper, like it’s a secret she’s terrified to tell.(In some ways, she thinks it kind of is.)Or: Maria's still having a rough time. Natasha's there.
Relationships: Maria Hill/Natasha Romanov
Series: blackhill in phoenix, arizona [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1542241
Comments: 3
Kudos: 88





	safe

**Author's Note:**

> so i did more of this!
> 
> uh warning for mentions of physical abuse,,, not super graphic, i dont think, but again, who can say? it's all subjective
> 
> and yall know the drill: minimal editing, absolutely no time to make it bette,r so sorry for any mistakes
> 
> enjoy:)

Maria goes home after that night—that night she took off sprinting into the pitch-black night like her pants were on fire, desperate to escape the spiteful man she left fuming behind her… and escape him she did, she supposes. 

She knew it wouldn’t last, though—knew that no matter how warm and _safe_ it felt being inside Natasha’s strong embrace and melting like putty beneath those peppermint-flavored kisses and forgetting (even if only for a moment) about the train wreck of a life she'd left just a handful of miles down the road, the one with that entirely inexplicable magnetism she’d always craved and resented in equal parts, the one that attracted some fundamental piece of her despite every other fibre of her being screaming that she should know better like the most intrusive and _bitter_ kind of nostalgia she’d ever known. 

She knew she’d come back to here, now—standing before the infuriatingly prim-looking house she’d grown to resent since long before she can remember at 11:30am on a Saturday morning, hair pulled back into a haphazard pony tail resting comfortably at the base of her skull, dressed in one of Natasha’s many oversized athletics tees (this one’s a slate-peppered-grey from a martial artist studio just down the block, because Natasha was a badass like that) that smells strongly of her girlfriend’s sweet coconut-scented shampoo, along with a pair of plain black running shorts (also Natasha’s) that come up unreasonably high on her admittedly rather long legs, barely covering the curve of her ass.

(Normally, that—the amount of skin she was showing, currently—would be more than enough to make her viscerally uncomfortable… but they smelled of Natasha, and they were soft like the faintest remembrance of her girlfriend’s feather-light touch, and God, but Maria could never bring herself to part with something that heavenly.)

The too-bright sun beats down on her from the cloudless sky above, and she wipes a fat droplet of warm sweat from her brow whilst checking her phone for the current temperature: 108 ˚ F (42 ˚ C). 

"God, it’s hot,” she grumbles (more to herself than anyone else) before steeling herself with a slow, unsteady inhale—then she’s striding up the cracked cement of the drive way, movements sure and deliberate (a rather stark contrast to the uncertainty and unease threatening to tear her apart from the inside), biting her lip hard as she nears the red-painted front door of a place that doesn’t feel quite so familiar as it used to anymore, her stomach twisting itself into sickening knots.

And, suddenly, she’s there, standing on the doorstep. 

Clenching her jaw tightly and raising a single fist, she raps the door twice. 

_Here goes nothing._

⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹

“I miss you,” Maria whispers into her phone’s speaker whilst curled into a ball upon the cool stone window ledge, her voice a hair’s breadth below a whisper, like it’s a secret she’s terrified to tell. (In some ways, she thinks it kind of is.)

She’s still in Nat’s clothes; they’re soft and warm and sweet-smelling around her even as the Phoenix sky turns dark outside her window and that feeling of ever-present worthlessness only seems to amplify beneath her skin, never even mind the gentle snores of her alcoholic father drifting over to her through the paper-thin walls, like a gentle yet nudging reminder of the arduous hell she fears she’ll never escape.

(Well, she always has the physical pain for that, too, she supposes, in the unlikely case that she should ever forget—the soreness in her split lip when she speaks, the splotchy green bruise from two nights ago smarting acutely beneath her ribcage, the phantom burn of her father’s meaty fist gripped tightly around her wrist that’s likely to bruise by morning.)

Nat makes it better, though—Nat feels like freedom even if only for a fleeting moment or two, and, when Maria hears her say, “I miss you, too, darling,” her velvety voice crackled and static-y over the line, Maria thinks she feels something break within her, because God, she’s never loved someone so intensely before and she thinks it might kill her some day if she’s not careful about it.

(She thinks, though, that maybe, just maybe, she'd be willing to break over and over and over again if this is what it means for her, if she can have Natasha at the very end of it all.

She can’t decide if that’s beautiful or just terrifying.)

“Can I see you tonight?” Natasha asks next, her honeyed voice wrought with those blessedly gentle undertones along with a certain tranquility that Maria can’t help clinging to like a saving grace—and really, Maria thinks that Natasha’s been just that for her ever since the day they first met in that sophomore year English class, where Natasha sat down next to her and flashed that devastating dimple-cheeked smile and Maria wondered if this was what it was like to be well and truly _enamored_. 

“Meet me at our place,” Maria murmurs back before she can talk herself out of it, silently begging her hands to stop shaking even as her heart beats rapidly in her chest at the mere thought of seeing Natasha tonight. “When can you get there?”

“I’ll be there in 10.”

⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹

It takes Maria around 17 minutes to get there on foot, to the abandoned Church of Scientology just down the street where she and Natasha would meet some nights under the cover of darkness, far away from _him_. 

It’s familiar to her: the weathered red-brick graffiti-ridden walls of the towering institution, the faded white paint that delineated long-forgotten parking spots upon the aging blacktop riddled with ingrown weeds, the sight of Natasha’s empty all-black 2008 Ford Fusion parked messily at the curb. 

She climbs up to the roof more on instinct than anything else, trembling hands tightly gripping the rusted iron of the fire escape ladder, the worn-down soles of her Converse high-tops sliding ever-so-slightly atop the rusted-over rungs on every pass.

It takes her about a minute to reach the top; then, she climbs over the thick cement divider and stops herself to lean back against it for a moment or two, taking a second or two to breathe in the pleasant, arid night air around her. 

Natasha’s there already overlooking the city’s lights all around, the distant lights of skyscrapers gleaming brightly from downtown, the gentle curves of her darkened silhouette against the twinkling luminescence so quaint yet sublime, like the most beautiful kind of photograph Maria prays she’ll never forget. 

Natasha turns as she approaches—Maria could never sneak up on her no matter how hard she tried, and tonight, she doesn’t intend to. 

It’s like coming home, she thinks: sinking wordlessly into Natasha’s strong embrace and resting her chin atop the crown of her head, squeezing tighter and tighter as cars pass by below and the city lights glimmer upon the horizon and life goes on all around them, even as the two of them remain blessedly still amidst it all atop the roof of a forgotten place that’s come to feel as sacred to her as anything else she’s ever known. 

Unflappable. Transcendent, almost. But above all else, safe.

_Safe_. 

⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹

**Author's Note:**

> thots? (my [tumblr](https://psyches.co.vu/))


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